Training competent psychologists in the field of child maltreatment

Abstract

Child maltreatment is a serious threat to children's physical and psychological well-being; therefore, it is critically important to develop high-quality educational programs to train psychologists in effectively addressing child abuse and neglect. Various health care disciplines and areas within the field of psychology have established competencies as a guide for student training curricula; however, none have been established for the area of child maltreatment. The present article presents training competencies for the field of child maltreatment that have been developed from a program designed to train psychology graduate students to practice and conduct research in child maltreatment. The competencies have been divided into eight core areas including assessment, treatment, multidisciplinary collaboration, advocacy, ethics, research, research ethics, and professional development.

An innovative approach to providing collaborative education to undergraduate students in the area of child maltreatment

“…Even when cases are reported, many child welfare workers are not adequately trained to manage the cases. Further, research has shown that there is little specialized coursework in the area of child maltreatment and child advocacy, as well as a lack of information on how to work together in as an effective team (Damashek, Balachova, & Bonner, 2011;Vieth, 2006). The team is an integral part of the Children's Advocacy Center (CAC) model that was created in the early 1980s by Congressman ''Bud'' Cramer in Huntsville, Alabama.…”

Psychometric Properties of Turkish Version of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire among Adolescents with Gender Differences

“…Child maltreatment is a serious threat to children's physical and psychological well-being (Damashek, Balachova, & Bonner, 2011). Child maltreatment can result in significant longterm emotional and behavioral consequences, including posttraumatic stress disorder (e.g., Dubner & Motta, 1999), aggression and anger (Shields, Cicchetti, & Ryan, 1994;Korkut, 2011;Taner & Gokler, 2004;Chapple, Tyler, & Bersani, 2005), school difficulties (Erickson & Egeland, 2002), depression (Boney-McCoy & Finkelhor, 1996), social difficulties (Mannarino & Cohen, 1996), criminal behavior (Gelles & Straus, 1990), low life satisfaction (Korkut, 2012) and self esteem (Bagley, Bolitho, & Mallick, 2001;Baldry, 2003;Durmuşoğlu & Doğru, 2006;Korkut, 2012) and long-term health problems (Anda et al, 2006).…”

Training in trauma psychology: A national survey of doctoral graduate programs.

“…Indeed, there appears to be little training in traumatic stress in graduate level education across mental health disciplines, resulting in calls for inclusion of this topic in psychology training programs (e.g., Courtois & Gold, 2009). This echoes earlier calls for graduate psychology training in specific types of trauma (Alpert & Paulson, 1990;Damashek, Balachova, & Bonner, 2011;Layne et al, 2011).…”